Outgoing Environmental Protection Administrator Lin Jun-yi (林俊義), who will step down today, said yesterday that he was looking forward to a day when Taiwan's civil service work was free of politics.
Lin hands the leadership over to incoming EPA head Hau Lung-bin (
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
At a farewell party thrown by EPA officials yesterday, Lin said that he had learned a lot from dealing with a recent oil spill crisis in southern Taiwan.
"Because of Taiwan's political environment, toady officials are applauded. Those who take things seriously are misunderstood," Lin said.
"I hope to see civil service in Taiwan eventually free itself from political control."
Lin stepped down from his post after a Greece-registered cargo ship, the MV Amorgos, ran into submerged reefs in mid-January near Kenting National Park, triggering an oil spill.
Waters and coastal coral reefs in the Lungkeng Ecological Conservation Preservation Area (龍坑生態保護區) have been severely damaged by the oil. Slow emergency measures taken by the EPA and related administrative problems pertaining to the spill eventually triggered the Cabinet's reshuffle.
In addition, Lin said that it was difficult to carry out environmental protection work in Taiwan, a country that he says desperately pursues economic development at the expense of sustainable management.
"The Cabinet should convene a cross-agency meeting to integrate experiences learned by different agencies from the oil spill case," Lin said.
Lin said he might go back to teaching or try to write books. Lin, who received a doctoral degree in ecology from Indiana University, was previously a biological science professor at Tunghai University in Taichung.
Incoming EPA head Hau, a New Party legislator, said yesterday at the Legislative Yuan that he would try to do his best to improve Taiwan's environmental standards.
Lambasting Hau's stance on supporting the resumption of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (
Lin Sheng-chung (
"All recent political crises were caused by questionable EIAs," Lin argued.
He used the recent controversy regarding unsolved vibration problems from the high-speed rail line passing by the Tainan Science-Based Industrial park as an example.
The recent replacement of chairman of the National Science Council was partly due to its failure in preventing high-tech firms from pulling their projects out of the park.
"The government should have asked itself if the assessment had been done carefully," Lin said.
Another example, Lin said, was former vice premier Yu Shyi-kun's resignation last July in the wake of the Pachang Creek (八掌溪) tragedy.
"Again, if the assessment was done seriously, no gravel excavation project would be allowed to have been carried out in the creek upstream. Poor land preservation caused the flood, which claimed four workers' lives," Lin said.
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